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From: carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.politics
Subject: Re: Discrimination and AA
Message-ID: <489@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 13-Jun-85 20:55:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: gargoyle.489
Posted: Thu Jun 13 20:55:04 1985
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(Me)
> Supposing that affirmative action is "racism"
> according to your favorite definition of the term, how does that
> prove that AA is wrong?  

(Jeff Sonntag)
>  Because a lot of people on the net think that racism is always wrong.
  
No matter how it's defined?  You miss the point of my question.  Let
me put it this way:

Various people have stated, as an argument against affirmative
action, that it constitutes racism (and by implication sexism).  Now
either I don't understand this argument or it is completely bogus.
In order to clarify, please restate this argument without using the
terms "racism" or "racist."  Just substitute the definitions of those
terms for the words themselves, and let's see what the argument looks
like.  But I suspect that the word "racism" has been brought in
purely for its name-calling value, just as an opponent of surgery
might say that "surgery is violence" or a cop-hater might say that
"cops are killers" (they do kill people).

(Me)
> The only reasons
> I can discern that net-posters keep saying that "AA = racism" are:
> (1) to score debating points on the net (no difficult task), and (2)
> to annoy liberals.  

(Sonntag)
>    You've said this before, Rich.  Could you please post your definitions
> of 'racism' and 'AA' so that we can see how they differ from normal usage
> in order to clear up this disagreement?  

OK.  From the article on "Racism" in the *Encyclopedia of Philosophy*
(an interesting article, BTW -- I recommend it to anyone with an
interest in the subject):

	RACISM is the doctrine that one group of men is morally or 
	mentally superior to another and that this superiority arises
	out of inherited biological differences.

From *A Dictionary of the Social Sciences*, ed. J. Gould & W.L. Kolb,
p. 571:

	Racism is the doctrine that there is a connection between
	racial and cultural traits, and that some races are
	inherently superior to others....

	The disagreement among scholars as to the word "race" does
	not extend to its derivative "racism"; there is virtual
	agreement that it refers to a doctrine of racial supremacy.
	[Ruth] Benedict has defined "racism" as "the dogma that one
	ethnic group is condemned by Nature to hereditary inferiority
	and another group is destined to hereditary superiority"
	(*Race, Science and Politics*).  Racism is more than race 
	prejudice.  It is a formal doctrine whose contemporary
	intellectual notions are derived from A. de Gobineau's *Essai
	sur l'inegalite' des races humaines*, published in 1853....

	Racism fuses national, ethnic, religious, and racial groups
	into an amalgam, the alleged inferiorities of which are 
	spuriously attributed to race alone.  J. Comas writes, "Racism
	is quite different from a mere acceptance or scientific and
	objective study of the fact of race and the fact of the
	present inequality of human groups.  Racism involves the 
	assertion that inequality is absolute and unconditional, i.e.,
	that a race is inherently and by its very nature superior or
	inferior to others quite independently of the physical 
	conditions of its habitat and of social factors" ("Racial
	Myths," in *The Race Question in Modern Science*).

From *Webster's 3rd International Dictionary*:

 Racism: 1.  The assumption that psychocultural traits and capacities
	are determined by biological race and that races differ
	decisively from one another, which is usually coupled with
	a belief in the inherent superiority of a particular race and
	its right to domination over others.

	2a.  A doctrine or political program based on the assumption
	of racism and designed to execute its principles.

	2b.  A political or social system founded on racism.

From the *Concise Oxford Dict.*:

 Racialism:  belief in superiority of a particular race; antagonism
	between different races.

 Racism:  1. = racialism.
       	  2.  theory that human abilities etc. are determined by race.

From the *American Heritage Dict.*:

 Racism:  1.  The notion that one's own ethnic stock is superior.
          2.  Discrimination or prejudice based on racism.

From *The Encyclopaedia Britannica*, 15th ed.:

 Racism:  the belief that some races are inherently superior to or
	different from others, based on the idea that inherited
	physical traits are accompanied by certain traits of
	personality, intellect, or culture.

(The word is too recent a coinage to appear in the OED.)  I'm not
going to risk a definition of affirmative action, but nothing that I
understand by the term satisfies a single one of the definitions
listed above.  So could we please stop saying that AA is racism, and
leave this kind of rhetoric to *National Review* and the like.

Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes
Sedulo curavi, humanas actiones non ridere, non lugere, neque
detestare, sed intellegere.
I have striven, not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them,
nor to hate them, but to understand them. --Spinoza, *Tractatus*